[Info-vax] Moving away from OpenVMS

[Paul Sture]

On Thu, 17 May 2012 12:40:30 -0400, John Smith \(who cares if I'm the one
@ HP - if here's even still there\) wrote:

> "JF Mezei" <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> wrote in message
> news:4fb35cf2$0$32182$c3e8da3$40d4fd75 at news.astraweb.com...
>> Eric Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Since this is a niche community, I'm appealing to anyone in the know
>>> to find out who specialises in COBOL system migrations, specifically
>>> *from* OpenVMS, to any modern platform (interpretation: Windows or
>>> Linux)?  I'm looking for someone to come in and do the whole job and
>>> leave us with a system that behaves just as it did before.
>>
>>
>> If you have a lot of software on your VMS system, a move to Unix will
>> require a lot of work. You need to consider for instance what happens
>> if your Cobol uses indexed files and how you will provide that
>> capability on Unix.
>>
>> You need to make a list of all VMS dependencies that you have, and then
>> take a look at alternative systems and middleware for the best
>> replacement.
>>
>> You need to make a policy decision of whether you are to go for open
>> sourced OS (less likely to be killed by the whims of one or more CEOs)
>> or whether you would accept going to a proprietary UNIX such as AIX
>> which might provide better mapping of VMS functionality.
> 
> No he doesn't.
> He wants somebody to come in and do it, and he appears to have an
> unlimited bank account to do so.

If he has an unlimited bank account, IBM may be a good suggestion.  They 
have porting tools to translate other flavours of COBOL into their own.

-- 
Paul Sture